A few weeks ago, Credit Suisse President Urs Rohner flashed at major shareholders with the wish to extend his term of office. Valuable time was lost. Now he has to look for a successor under the most adverse circumstances.
As Urs Rohner In spring 2011, when he was elected by the shareholders as President of Credit Suisse (CS), he knew the bank in detail: he had served as Vice President for two years and before that he had worked in the bank’s top management for five years.
In contrast, he expected his successor to jump into the cold water. At the general meeting of the CS at the end of April, the 60-year-old Rohner started his last year at the top of the bank. But the succession planning is apparently not yet very advanced.
No extension
In fact, the Financial Times (Article payable) At the beginning of this month, Rohner wanted to popularize an extension of his term of office beyond the 12-year limit with major shareholders of the bank in February. Ironically, the President stressed in his letter to shareholders on Wednesday that he had introduced this restriction himself.
However, the Zurich resident, who clearly denied such a request to the British newspaper, was flashed off by the shareholders. Blackrock, in particular, the President in his power struggle against the resigned CEO Tidjane Thiam actually supported, made this backing dependent on Rohner’s timely resignation. David Herro Harris Associates even threatened to drop Rohner off if Thiam was released.
High demands
The Governance and Nominations Committee on the Board of Directors, which is chaired by the Chairman himself, now has less than a year to find a successor who will satisfy the company’s many stakeholders.
An internal successor is highly unlikely: there is no suitable person on the board of directors, and there is no time for a “cooling off” as Rohner did as Vice Chairman. Accordingly, it is also unlikely that a transitional president will be hoisted into office first, like this with Hans-Ulrich Dörig was the case in 2009.
In addition to the time required – the president of a major Swiss bank is a full-time job – and the professional qualifications, the candidate must already live in Switzerland or at least be willing to spend a large part of the year here. In addition, the person must not be too old to ideally serve the bank for a good decade.
Restricted candidate group
Due to the skirmishes with Thiam and the shareholders, some of whom publicly supported the dismissed CEO, Rohner lost important time in the search for a successor. Now the coronavirus pandemic is putting a spanner in the works: personal interviews will be difficult in the next few months, and no top-class manager in the financial sector will want to leave his post in the face of an outbreak of the global economic crisis.
This further limits the number of candidates. Is called regularly Philipp Hildebrand, who had to resign as President of the Swiss National Bank eight years ago and is currently on the management board at Blackrock.
Beyond any doubt
Even the former UBS manager Ulrich Körner is considered a candidate. Alexander Gut, already a member of the board of directors of CS and son of the bank’s honorary president, meanwhile took himself out of the race as a candidate.
Given the unrest that led Rohners and Thiam’s leadership at the top of the CS, it is all the more important that the president’s successor be beyond any doubt. He or she should also be credible with a statement that Rohner made in 2014 after admitting a debt and a record fine from the bank.
“Personally, we have a clean slate,” he said at the time.
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